Vol. 47 No. 2 (1999)
Research Article

Variation in Automobile Naming

PDF
  • Ingrid Piller
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1179/nam.1999.47.2.83

Published 1999-06-01

Copyright (c) 1999 Maney

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

Abstract

The names of 1024 American automobiles are analyzed according to register variation, diachronic variation and manufacturer variation. Variation through such linguistic means as structural complexity, metonymy and iconicity is shown to not only reflect social realities of automobile producers and consumers but to actively contribute to constructing these realities as well.

PDF

References

  1. Aronoff, Mark. 1981. Automobile Semantics. Linguistic Inquiry 12:329–347.
  2. Bryson, Bill. 1994. Made in America. London: Seeker & Warburg.
  3. Cameron, Deborah. 1997. Performing Gender Identity: Young Men’s Talk and the Construction of Heterosexual Masculinity. In Johnson and Meinhof,eds. Pp. 47–64.
  4. Fairclough, Norman. 1989. Language and Power. London: Longman.
  5. Gal, Susan. 1995. Between Speech and Silence. The Problematics of Research on Language and Gender. In Roman, Juhasz and Miller, eds. Pp. 407–431.
  6. Georgano, Nick. 1992. The American Automobile. A Centenary 1893 - 1993. New York: Smithmark.
  7. Grieshaber, N. J. 1990. A Rolls By Any Other Name.... Would It Sell As Sweet? Nomina Africana 4:35–45.
  8. Gutknecht, Christoph and Erwin Wehking. 1985. Produktnamen. Eine eigene Subklasse konkreter Substantive? Review of Applied Linguistics 67/68: 77–89.
  9. Hopkins, Claude. 1923. Scientific Advertising. New York: Bell Publishing.
  10. Johnson, Sally and Ulrike H. Meinhof, eds. 1997. Language and Masculinity. Oxford: Blackwell.
  11. Lakoff, George. 1987. Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things. What Categories Reveal About the Mind. Chicago and London: U of Chicago P.
  12. Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson. 1980. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: U of Chicago P.
  13. Leech, Geoffrey N. 1966. English in Advertising. A Linguistic Study of Advertising in Great Britain. London: Longman.
  14. Piller, Ingrid. 1996. American Automobile Names. Essen: Blaue Eule.
  15. Platen, Christoph. 1997. "'Ökonymie:”Zur Produktnamen-Linguistik im Europäischen Binnenmarkt. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
  16. Roman, Camille, Suzanne Juhasz and Christanne Miller, eds. 1995. The Women and Language Debate. A Sourcebook. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers U P.
  17. Saeed, John I. 1997. Semantics. Oxford: Blackwell.
  18. Schroeder, Don. 1994. Dodge Avenger ES. Car and Driver 40,6: 65–73.
  19. Stubbs, Michael. 1996. Text and Corpus Analysis. Oxford: Blackwell.
  20. Talbot, Mary M. 1997. ‘Randy Fish Boss Branded a Stinker': Coherence and the Construction of Masculinities in a British Tabloid Newspaper. In Johnson and Meinhof,eds. Pp. 173–187.
  21. Yates, Brock. 1983. The Decline and Fall of the American Automobile Industry. New York: Vintage Books.